CHENNAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) may have released the 2023 ICC Men's ODI World Cup schedule early this week but Pakistan is still giving it the once over under the microscope.
While they have started the process of involving the government in getting the requisite green signals to feature in the tournament, it's reliably learnt they may yet involve the ICC again on venues, including but not limited to the match against the hosts.
It's understood that, as of now, they may be sending a security team to the five venues (Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Kolkata) the team is slated to play matches in during the World Cup. While they haven't put in place a fixed timeline within which to carry out this exercise, it depends on the government. This is common practice among a few of the teams before a big event but a Pakistan security team report eventually forced the ICC to move the 2016 World T20 match against India from Dharamsala to Kolkata in 2016.
"The PCB welcomes ICC’s decision to shift the ICC World Twenty20 Pakistan v India game scheduled in Dharamsala on March 19 to Kolkata," a PCB statement had said then. "The PCB had earlier conveyed to ICC and BCCI of its constraints to play in Dharamsala, as was also a recommendation by the security delegation of Pakistan that visited India recently.”
Back to the now and some of the earlier reports had suggested that there was a delay in ICC announcing the schedule as Pakistan had raised issues over playing a few teams because of the nature of the pitch. With just under a 100 days to go for the World Cup, the only thing that is certain right now is there may still be an element of uncertainty to the issue.
In an interview with BBC's Test Match Special during the World Test Championship final last month, ICC chief executive, Geoff Allardice, had alluded to the complexity of the issue when he was asked on the delay in the official schedule.
"I don't think we can fully comprehend the magnitude of the issues between the two countries. In a cricketing sense, the Asia Cup isn't an issue that the ICC is involved in. When we get to World Cups, India and Pakistan have obviously come together and played each other. They (India) are going to put on a 10-team tournament and with Pakistan, we have an agreement with them about participation in ICC events. There is always speculation and conjecture and hyperbole around the issues... we are expecting cricket to win out again."
Cricket has usually, in the words of Allardice, won out in the past. India and Pakistan have faced each other in two World Cup matches in the former (Bengaluru in 1996 and Mohali in 2011).
Speaking about the Asia Cup, Pakistan will honour the arrangement put in place by the previous chairman, Najam Sethi. Even though all eyes will inexorably be trained on October 15 (the World Cup match at Ahmedabad), the two nations could face each other three times in a matter of two-and-a-half weeks.
